This study aims to isolate basic interrelations between characteristics of municipal populations and the fiscal strains on their municipal governments. Two basic data sets will be used: (1) 51 cities that we have studied to date, and for which detailed data concerning decision-making processes have been collected. (2) All U.S. cities for which the U.S. Census has reported municipal population and fiscal data (about 430 in 1970). Most analysis of the 51 cities will be cross-sectional; analysis of the U.S. cities will proceed both cross-sectionally and with time series, some beginning in 1880, but most from 1950 to the mid-1970's. Interrelations among basic variables will be examined using a series of approaches, especially multiple regression. Fiscal strain indicators of several types will be created, interrelations among them examined, and special effort devoted to isolating leading indicators of FScf (cash flow indicators of fiscal strain). Municipal government characteristics include in particular the range of functions performed by the municipality. Several indicators of such "functional performance" will be constructed for use in other analyses. Decision-making variables will continue to be constructed to relate to fiscal strain, to test such hypotheses as "centralization encourages public goods, but decentralization generates separable goods." Major population characteristics are population size, median family income, percentage poor, and percentage wealthy, and changes in each of these over time. Practically all data are already in machine-readable form, so most of our effort can be devoted to analysis.